Between Two Rivers

Thursday, March 7

An aesthetically powerful film about Cairo, Illinois, isolated at the confluence of the Ohio & Mississippi rivers, where the North meets the South. Original cinematography and candid interviews with archive footage, unseen for over 40 years, capturing the town at the height of explosive racial tensions in 1969. The film sets the city’s tumultuous past against the backdrop of the latest crisis to afflict the community: the record-breaking floods of spring 2011, when the rising Ohio & Mississippi rivers threatened to engulf the town, forcing an emergency evacuation and bringing its plight to the attention of the world’s press.

Directors Statement: “Cairo took us by surprise. We came across its abandoned downtown by chance and were astonished by its haunting beauty; the derelict stores and crumbling facades of this once thriving center of river commerce are disconcerting but highly seductive. The town has both a dramatic and melancholic aura, which, as filmmakers, we were immediately drawn to. However, we soon discovered that it is far more than a ready-made film-set, and much less the deserted ‘ghost-town’ it is often described as. Cairo is a community, albeit one beset with many troubles and facing a precarious future.